Semiserious Chefs

As we’ve probably mentioned in some other posts, we recently (a few months ago) were gifted a children’s drum set, and I was super excited because I was going to get to teach Nathan how to drum. But like with everything else it seems, it didn’t quite go as planned. You know that whole broken arm thing? Well, it kind of put a damper on any plans we had. So now I sit here pondering if it’s an appropriate time to begin lessons again. I figured as soon as Nathan got his cast removed, we could wait a week or so for his arm to regain it’s full range of motion and then start banging on some drums.

Fast forward to now; weeks later. He still can’t fully straighten out his left arm, although I can’t help but think that drumming might be a good way of improving the flexibility of his arm. I feel bad watching him do cartwheels and headstands because he’s definitely favoring that arm. Yes, we’ve taken him to the doctor for physical therapy and no it isn’t getting better. So we are left with the decision to figure out if he needs some surgery or not. But I digress.

Below are some thoughts I would like to share before I post a video of Nathan playing his drum set. From there, I will figure out if he should or should not start learning to play the drums. Oh and if he has no interest, I will end it there. I have no intention of trying to force something on him that he isn’t interested in at the time.

It has definitely been longer than I would have liked since I last added a blog post to the site. But what can I say, apart from the fact that I’ve been extra busy lately? You’re probably rolling your eyes at that, and I don’t blame you. However, I have some other excuses for my lack of content, and one of them is actually legitimate too.

For instance, I hired someone to trim the inside of an exterior door that Vanessa and I put in a year and a half ago. That’s right, we cut out a piece of our dining room wall, (a year and a half ago) rerouted and shortened the heating vents (1 1/2 years ago), eliminated an electrical outlet (547 days ago), and then popped in a new frame and a new door (547.5 days ago).

And that’s where everything stopped. I decided it was too much work to mud the sheet rock around the new door, sand it down, spray the texture on the wall and then paint it. Let alone frame it. Besides, I’m really not good with sheet rock and spackle. The outside was framed and looked pretty, but the inside was far from any kind of prettiness. So there it sat for a year and a half with nothing going on. It took me that long to decide that I didn’t have the skills necessary to fix all the ugliness I had caused around the door. And that’s just poor excuse number one.

Now let me introduce you to poor excuse number two. Vanessa and I are getting kind of tired out, hence the reason for the good excuse that follows. I don’t mean the want to go to sleep kind of tired, I mean the seriously need a break kind of tired. Literally, the only time off we take is a few days at the end of the year for the holidays. But even then it’s not a break. If it sounds like I’m complaining, it’s because I am.

Noise, NOISE, NOISE!!! Our brains honestly need a nice break for a little while. Daycare, fostering, and Nathan all add up to an ear throbbing cacophony of chaos. But to be fair – and this is going to sound funny when compared to my previous statement – we are both very happy with where we are in life at this moment.

Ready for my first and only good excuse? Alright here goes. I have recently been – studying, I guess you could say. We as a family are looking forward to taking a trip in the not so distant future. I don’t know any details other than that however. What I do know though, is that when I say trip, I don’t mean going to some place like Nebraska to check out the huge train depot they got goin’ on there, or going down South to watch me some NASCAR. Speaking of NASCAR, I seriously don’t get that sport. Why is it so popular? It’s just like five hundred miles of left turns isn’t it?

Anyway moving on. I mean we want to travel overseas somewhere. And what better way to be respectful of another country’s culture than to take the effort to learn a little bit of their language? Well, I’m sure there are other ways, but I just don’t want to be “that guy” who thinks everyone should speak English. Those people are the ones that like NASCAR.

And since we are all about food here, I can’t imagine a better place to go and blog about food than in Europe. I’m thinking Paris to be exact. But that’s all I’m going to say on the matter at this point in time. We’ll see what happens.

Back to Nathan and his drums though. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that he isn’t focused enough to sit through even a short lesson at this time. I will post new videos as time goes by so everyone can see his progress. Or his lack of progress if that’s the case. I’m just going to have fun with this one and see where it goes.

I would love it if he decided to pick up the drums, but on the other hand I would love to see him start doing gymnastics. He’s a natural and I’m sure he would pick it up right away, if it wasn’t for the tight ligaments in his left arm. But anyway, it’s just a silly video and one that showcases how serious he takes his learning. What do you think? Is he a natural or what?